KABUL (AFP) — Protesters in Afghanistan burned Danish and Dutch flags Wednesday as they called on the government to censure The Netherlands and Denmark over cartoons and a film that they say insult Islam.
Several hundred people torched an effigy of Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen in the eastern town of Sharan, Paktika province, against "insults" to Islam, police said.
"They were asking the Danish government to punish those who have drawn up and published the insulting cartoons of Prophet Mohammad," protester Abdullah Jan told AFP by telephone.
Seventeen members of the parliament in Nangahar province led dozens of people through the eastern city of Jalalabad for a demonstration in which they burned Dutch and Danish flags, an organiser said.
The protesters also called on the UN and Afghan government to isolate the European nations, Nangahar provincial council secretary Khan Mohammad said.
Another 400 to 500 people -- most of them youngsters -- marched in the town of Pul-i-Alam, 50 kilometres (30 miles) south of Kabul, said the deputy provincial police chief of Logar province, Abdul Majeed Latifi.
"They asked the government to put pressure through diplomatic channels on the Dutch and Danish governments to stop the printing of cartoons and punish the perpetrators," he said.
Wednesday's rallies came a day after parliament demanded Kabul summon the ambassadors of the two countries -- both key allies in the fight against the Taliban -- to issue a formal protest.
There have been protests in a few other Afghan centres since several Danish dailies recently reprinted a drawing featuring the Prophet Mohammed's head with a turban that looked like a bomb with a lit fuse.
Its first publication in early 2006 caused days of protests worldwide, including in Afghanistan where 11 people were killed.
A Dutch right-wing politician, Geert Wilders, is meanwhile said to be preparing to broadcast a film on the Internet this month that attacks Islam.
Afghanistan's extremist Taliban have warned it would step up attacks on Dutch soldiers if the film is released.
About 1,500 Dutch troops are stationed in Afghanistan as part of a 40-nation NATO-led force helping the government battle an insurgency led by the Taliban, who were in government from 1996 to 2001, when they were ousted in a US-led invasion.
Denmark has about 630 soldiers in the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force.
UN spokesman in Afghanistan, Aleem Siddique, said the world body shared the Afghan people's concerns about the film and cartoons.
"We have always believed that the freedom of media entails full respect for the religious beliefs and the tenets of all religions, including the holy religion of Islam," he told reporters.
Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta reiterated a condemnation he first issued in Copenhagen Monday, saying that the cartoons and film were "inflaming animosity among civilisations."
"The religion and beliefs of people shall not be offended," he told reporters.
Those who printed the cartoons are "the vanguards of a cultural war," he said.
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